Book Reviews

Book Review: Communism

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2002

Communism: A History by Richard Pipes (New York: The Modern Library, 2001); 175 pages; $19.95. IT SEEMS HARD TO BELIEVE that it is already more than 10 years since the collapse and disappearance of the Soviet Union in December 1991. It was only about 10 years earlier, in 1981, that the conservative French social critic Jean-François Revel first published his book ...

Book Review: The Elusive Quest for Growth

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2002

The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics by William Easterly (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2002); 342 pages; $29.95. POVERTY, UNFORTUNATELY, is the natural condition of man. And through most of his time on earth, as best as historians can determine, his standard of living has been meager and poor. But slowly over the centuries certain ...

Book Review: Against the Dead Hand

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2002

Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism by Brink Lindsey (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002); 336 pages; $29.95. THE WORLD IS BECOMING increasingly smaller. Commodities, capital, and people move around the world with far greater ease than at any time since before the First World War. Market-oriented reforms have been the watchword for economic policy for ...

Book Review: Rebels on the Air

by George Leef March 1, 2002

Rebels on the Air — An Alternative History of Radio in America by Jesse Walker (New York University Press, 2001); 326 pages; $24.95. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE harboring an escaped Cuban child to receive an unexpected, pre-dawn visit from a federal SWAT team. Early in ...

Book Review: Wilhelm Ropke

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2002

Wilhelm Röpke: Swiss Localist, Global Economist by John Zmirak (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2001); 229 pages; $24.95. WITHOUT A DOUBT, Wilhelm Röpke was one of the leading free-market economists of the 20th century and one of the most influential thinkers in Germany after the Second World War. Many years ago, an economist acquaintance of mine, who had studied with Röpke in ...

Book Review: The Race to the Top

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2002

The Race to the Top: The Real Story of Globalization by Tomas Larsson (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2001); 164 pages; $18.95. “Globalism” has become the new, fashionable catchword for a process that has been developing with increasing intensity for more than 200 years — the internationalization of the division of labor. Of course, in one sense, international trade is as old as ...

Book Review: Fool’s Errands

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 2002

Fool’s Errands: America’s Recent Encounters with Nation Building by Gary T. Dempsey with Roger W. Fontaine (Washington, D. C.: Cato Institute, 2001); 224 pages; $19.95 THE CONCEPT OF “nation building” became widely used in the 1960s as a growing number of former European colonies around the world were given independence. The concept was most frequently applied in the context of Africa. ...

Book Review: Ludwig von Mises

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 2001

Ludwig von Mises: The Man and His Economics by Israel M. Kirzner (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2001); 226 pages; $24.95. LUDWIG VON MISES was, without a doubt, one of the most important economists of the 20th century. Every textbook on comparative economic systems, for example, will point out that it was Mises who initiated the famous debate over economic calculation under ...

Book Review: Money and the Market

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 2001

Money and the Market: Essays on Free Banking by Kevin Dowd (New York/London: Routledge, 2001); 226 pages; $100. KEVIN DOWD IS ONE OF THE LEADING free-market monetary theorists today. Along with Lawrence H. White and George Selgin, he has helped to revive and refine the case for abolishing central banking and replacing it with a market-based competitive free-banking system. In 1976, Austrian ...

Book Review: In Defense of Free Capital Markets

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 2001

In Defense of Free Capital Markets: The Case against a New International Financial Architecture by David F. DeRosa (Princeton, N.J.: Bloomberg Press, 2001); 230 pages; $27.95. IN THE 1930s, during the high watermark of aggressive economic nationalism in Europe, one of the most effective political weapons of regulation used by governments was control over the buying and selling of currencies on ...

Book Review: The New Dealers’ War

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 2001

The New Dealers’ War: F.D.R. and the War within World War II by Thomas Fleming (New York: Basic Books, 2001); 628 pages; $35. THE SECOND WORLD WAR is considered America’s “good war” of the 20th century. The First World War is considered the tragic war, which need not have occurred, which could have been ended much earlier than the four years over ...

Book Review: The Making of Modern Economics

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 2001

The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great Thinkers by Mark Skousen (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2001); 485 pages; $25. IN THE EARLY DECADES OF THE 19TH CENTURY, Thomas Carlyle was the first one to call economics “the dismal science.” He considered the study of the market economy “dismal” because it emphasized individualism and freedom of association ...